| 5,000 BC? |
Shadow plays
have a long history around the world |
| 1420 AD |
First drawing
of a Magic Lantern, from the Liber Instrumentorum by
Giovanni de Fontana (Italy) |
| Mid-17th Century |
Development
of modern Magic Lantern projection systems in Europe |
| 1839 |
Invention of
photography in Europe |
| 1879 |
Eadweard Muybridge’s
Zoopraxiscope allows the projection of a series of
photographic slides giving the impression of movement |
| 1888-1892 |
Edison develops
a "peep-show" motion picture camera which he calls
the Kinetoscope |
| 1892 |
Edison sets
up the "Black Maria" motion picture studio in West
Orange, NJ (closed in 1901) |
| 1893 |
First Edison
films deposited with Library of Congress for copyright |
| 1894 |
"Edison Kinetoscopic
Record of a Sneeze" (aka "Fred Ott’s Sneeze") is the
earliest surviving copyright Edison film. A soundtrack
was recorded separately. |
| 1894 |
The Holland
Brothers open New York City’s first Kinetoscope parlor |
| 1895 |
Edison’s Kinetophone
is introduced. It allowed single viewers to watch a
film while simultaneously hearing a soundtrack recording.
The synchronization was imperfect, and the machine
did not find a market. A short Edison film from 1894
or 1895 shows two men dancing while another plays the
violin into a phonograph horn (this is known as the Dickson
Experimental Sound Film and you can see it by clicking
on the hyperlink). The soundtrack, featuring music
from the light opera "The Chimes of Normandy" by Jean
Robert Planquette, was discovered on a broken wax cylinder
in the 1990s and restored. |
| 1895 |
The Lumière
brothers give their first public presentation, in Paris,
of their Cinematographe. About 10 short films were
shown, the first of which was "Workers leaving the
factory in Lyon". It is believed that the films were
provided with live musical accompaniment on the piano.
This event is often considered to be the beginnings
of the modern cinema. |
| 1895-96 |
Several companies
work on the development of their own versions of the
motion picture projection camera. Edison premiered
the Vitascope (which it produced for another company)
in 1896; they then switched to their own version called
the Projectoscope or Projecting Kinetoscope |
| 1896 |
By this time,
motion picture shows (usually a series of very short
films) were regularly shown at Vaudeville theatres. |
| 1890s-1920s |
There are numerous
experiments synchronizing motion pictures and phonographs,
in Europe and the United States, in this period. These
systems are not commercially viable until the premiere
of the Vitaphone system in the mid-1920s. There are
also a variety of techniques using live actors, musicians,
singers, and sound effects specialists to accompany
film showings at some theatres. Most film showings
probably featured some continuous musical accompaniment,
by a pianist, organist, or a small band or orchestra. |
| 1907 |
Dr. Lee De Forest
patents the audion tube, an invention crucial to the
subsequent history of music, radio, film, and televison.
It allowed a small electric signal to be amplified
and played over loudspeakers |
| 1909 |
Edison company
sends out its "Kinetogram" newsletter featuring musical
suggestions for 7 of its films |
| 1913 |
The first of
the Sam Fox Moving Picture Music volumes is published,
with musical cues for various moods and national-ethnic
settings composed by J. S. Zamecnik |
| 1915-1922 |
Scientists in
Europe and the US develop optical recording (sound-on-film)
systems, and work on improving phonographic recording |
| 1923 |
Experimental
electrical recordings developed at Bell Labs |
| 1924 |
The first showing,
at Yale University, of a film with a synchronized,
electrically recorded sound-on-disc soundtrack, on
a system developed by Western Electric |
| 1925 |
Erno Rapee publishes
his "Encylopedia of Music for Motion Pictures," a compendium
of musical cue suggestions, organized by mood (agitated,
passion), setting (pastoral) and ethnic-national types
(Chinese music, Middle Eastern music). The musical
cues are excerpts from 18th and 19th century European
composers and other composers of classical and light
classical music. |
| 1925 |
Warner Brothers
is the only film studio that decides to invest in Western
Electric’s sound-on-disc system |
| 1926 |
The film Don
Juan, Warner Brothers’ first feature film to
used the Western Electric system, is premiered in
New York City. The film is still "silent" in that
it has no dialogue, but its continuous musical score
is presented via Western Electric’s "Vitaphone" sound-on-disc
system |
| 1927 |
The smashing
success of Warner Brothers’ second Vitaphone effort, The
Jazz Singer - a mixture of silent film and musical,
also featuring two scenes with spoken dialogue - spells
the doom of the "silent era." |
| 1928 |
Walt Disney’s Steamboat
Willie introduced Mickey Mouse, and was also
the first film (in this case an animated cartoon)
with a fully-synchronized soundtrack including music,
dialogue, and sound effects (it used a sound-on-film
recording system). |
| 1929 |
The Broadway
Melody, MGM’s first "all talking, all singing,
all dancing" film is released, and wins the Oscar
for Outstanding Picture (1928-29). It used a sound-on-film
process, and also introduced the technique of dubbing
in separately recorded sound onto film. |
